How To Build A Credible Web Presence From Your New Website

How To Build A Credible Web Presence From Your New Website

“If you build it, they will come” is a phrase that no longer works in the eyes of the social consumer, you need a much wider web presence to gain the attention of this new wave of net savvy customer. A beautiful website, a supporting blog, a well designed Facebook page, a few videos on your YouTube channel, an active twitter account and a LinkedIn profile is not going to drive traffic to your new website.

In the eyes of Google, and the other major search engines, you are just another number, no different to all the other new websites that are launched every day of the week. In fact, the only way you will be found by Google is if you are popular. By popular, I mean you are a credible source of information in your particular industry and have enough content to prove it for each keyword that you want to be on page 1 of the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

It’s not so much what your budget is for your website but what is your budget for each keyword you want on page 1. The competition for each keyword is widely varied and mainly based on how much traffic you are likely to get from being on page 1. The more competitive, the more you have to invest to get that coveted page 1 placement and, better still, be the very first listing on page 1.

So, what is the best, quickest and easiest way to do this?

If you have a new website then you probably had someone build it for you, and they probably said they will build it to be “search engine friendly” with on-page search engine optimisation techniques (URL structure, META data, social media integration etc) but is that going to be enough to get you on page 1?

With more and more people using the internet and social media now being here to stay you’ve got no chance!

So here are a few tips on what you need to do to get on page 1 of the SERPs:

Backlinks

One of the biggest factors that has almost always been a big indication to search engines that your site is credible is having a different sites linking back to yours. You can think of these links as votes for your site from other people and other sites. If other people think that your site, your business and your information is good and are linking to it, then the search engines are more likely to think so too. That’s why it’s important to try to 1.) Create amazing content that people will want to link to 2.) Try to build some of these backlinks yourself. How do you do that? Here’s one of the best ways to do so:

Network with others in your industry and get involve on their sites or blogs by leaving comments and interacting. Once you’ve developed a relationship with them you can reach out to them and offer to write a helpful or interesting article for their readers. This has become known as guest posts and can give tremendous credibility, as well as drive traffic to your site over the long run.

Outgoing Links

Outgoing links are the links on your site where you link to other sites. First thing you want to do is make sure that you don’t have broken links. Secondly, try to link to helpful sites that are related to what your site is about. Links to things that your readers will appreciate. Thirdly, link to authority sites within your industry.

Sitemaps

Sitemaps are very important to any site. Just like you need to have a site that’s designed to be user-friendly so users will stick around, you need to be using valid sitemaps to help search engines navigate your site. You should have an XML sitemap for the search engines, but if you have videos on your site you really need to make sure you also have video sitemaps specifically for the videos.

Social Proof and Attracting Social Consumers

Social media has become more than just a fun way to connect and get information on the go. It’s become a staple for how search engines, particularly Google, views your site. The more times your site is mentioned in social media from different users, the more ‘social proof’ there is that your site is credible. If your site offers walking routes and there are people all across the country tweeting about the awesome route they found, don’t you think that makes your site more credible? The trick here is to get people who are ‘power’ users of social media to share your site. The more influential they are in the industry, the more powerful their social mention will be for your site.